Commentary by Robert Carter

The North Jefferson News



I have a thing for eight-man football – or as I like to call it, “Crazy Eights.”

When I moved to the state a dozen years ago, I had heard of this gridiron variation once or twice, and knew that it was a big deal out in the Plains States. But that was it. I had never seen it in action before.

That changed when I began working with the folks at Garywood Christian School, which was a part of my church. (The school has since suspended operations while its parent church relocates from Hueytown to McCalla.) The football team needed a scoreboard operator, so I made my way to a little youth football field in Pleasant Grove.

When I saw the opening kickoff, the first thing I thought was, “Something’s missing here.” It turned out to be three men on each team. Suddenly, eight-man football was staring me in the face, and I didn’t quite know what to make of it.

Now I’ve seen the game for a decade or so, I’ve come to realize that it’s different from the 11-man game, but it is definitely football.

A little history: Eight-man football has actually been around for quite a while. It’s still a mainstay in states like Oklahoma, Nebraska and Kansas, where small schools are the lynchpins of sparsely-populated farm communities. Those schools simply don’t have enough bodies for the regular game, so they improvise.

Eight-man is even a big deal in football-mad Texas. Sports fans know about schools like Permian of “Friday Night Lights” fame, which regularly fills its 19,000-seat stadium. But go just a few miles further into West Texas along I-20 and you’ll find the small schools where eight-man is the rule, with even a six-man variant.

When someone asks me to explain eight-man, my standard reply is, “Think arena football without the nets.” And while that’s an easy response, it’s not too far from the truth. The game is wide open, even when played on an 80-by-40-yard field as it’s supposed to be. When circumstances force play on a traditional 100-yard field that is 40 feet wider, the scoreboard gets quite a workout.

An eight-man offense has five men on the line and three backs. The man on either end of the line is an eligible receiver, even on an unbalanced line. Ever seen a center-eligible play? It’s possible in eight-man, and I’ve seen it – twice.

Most defensive schemes are a 4-2-2 or 4-3-1. The backs have to be quite speedy. Since most players play both sides of the ball, it’s not unusual to see a quarterback who is sacked on one possession move to safety and return the favor to his opponent on the next possession.

The ball comes out to the 15 on touchbacks, and 15-yard penalties are reduced to 10, unless the game is played on a 100-yard field. There’s also a 45-point mercy rule that ends the game if one team is ahead by that margin or more after halftime.

Other than that, there’s not much difference in rules between eight-man and the traditional version. Game play relies more on speed than power, but the resulting bone-jarring open-field tackles can be quite impressive.

Here in Alabama, eight-man football is a bit of an oddity. It is not sanctioned by the AHSAA or the AISA. Even small schools that might benefit from its lesser manpower needs eschew the eight-man game as not being “real football.” And that’s a pity.

The game is played here almost exclusively by small Christian schools and home school organizations. A patchwork quilt of sanctioning bodies prevails, each with its own “state championship.”

Tabernacle is pretty much the traditional power when it comes to the game in these parts. It was the first school in metro Birmingham to play eight-man, as far as anyone recalls, and is a charter member of the Christian Football Association.

If you’re a football fan, you should take in an eight-man football game next season. It might just open your eyes.

It did for me.